


If I Live To See The Dawn

by DawnsEternalLight



Category: Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Bonding, Brothers, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, jason's dealing with some stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-02
Updated: 2017-03-02
Packaged: 2018-09-27 19:37:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10042922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DawnsEternalLight/pseuds/DawnsEternalLight
Summary: Jason had been planning to do a lot of things that night. Babysitting Damian was not one of them. Neither was taking on a whole gang, or finding himself being carried back to safety by Damian. Most of all he hadn't been planning on re-evaluating...well everything.





	

Jason’s night had not gone as planned. He’d been halfway across the city, ready to drop in on an unsuspecting group of drug dealers when he’d gotten the call from Bruce. _I need your help._  
  
Bruce didn’t call him often and he never asked for help. Jason’s first thought had been that Batman was in trouble, but his voice hadn’t sounded strained. His tentative response of _With what?_ was answered with a request to watch Damian. More precisely Bruce asked Jason if he would “Take care of Robin tonight.”  
  
Damian was the last person Jason expected to be babysitting that night. Dick maybe. Tim probably at some point. But Damian? Jason hadn’t been able to wrap his mind around it. His youngest sibling was headstrong and far too similar to Jason himself for Bruce to approve of their spending a lot of time together.  
  
Which meant that Jason was the last choice. He’d scowled, despite Bruce and anyone else who cared to look being unable to see it. It felt good to turn his mouth down in a grimace. “No.” He’d answered.  
  
Except Bruce had asked him. And Bruce never asked him for anything. The request alone tempted something warm to bubble up in Jason, but he pushed it down as fast at the thought of being the last to be asked.  
  
He didn’t mind spending time with Damian. The kid wasn’t so bad when you pushed past his prickly exterior, and he had a sense of humor that Jason found endearing. Especially when it involved dragging Tim for his lack of self-care. Jason simply refused to be Bruce’s last choice in the matter. He understood it, but that didn’t mean he had to be happy about it.  
  
The other side of the comm was silent as his father considered the answer and tried to come up with one of his own. The silence dragged out longer than it should have and Jason started to wonder if Bruce had closed the connection.  
  
“I’ll send him home then.”  
  
That was it. The comm clicked off and Jason swore. Damian wouldn’t go home. Even if Bruce marched him back to the manor the boy would be back on Gotham’s streets in half an hour. Damian was many things: highly trained, able, and smart, but Jason couldn’t see himself letting a child, because that was something else Damian was, out patrolling Gotham’s streets alone.  
  
Jason had been Robin. He’d been the kid to do things on his own. To be assured in his abilities. Batman had trained him after all. He’d failed more times than he cared to count. Wanted a partner more than that. No Jason wasn’t going to let Damian patrol alone, neither was he going to call Bruce back and tell him that.  
  
It took Jason longer than he cared to admit to find Damian. He refused to call for help early on, for fear of Bruce overhearing before he’d left. Thankfully his youngest brother had a tendency to follow his father’s example and follow pre-planned patrols unless something caught his attention.  
  
As Jason moved on to the third area he figured Damian would be he was ready with a snappy comment to give his little brother the moment he found him. Something about sneaking out being not DaddyBats approved, but the words died on his lips the moment he parked his motorcycle and cut the engine. Shouts filled the air followed by the cough of gunfire.  
  
Jason was off his bike, the vehicle crashing to the ground behind him, and halfway down the street before his head caught up with his feet. The source of the sounds had to be close, his eyes grazing each alleyway he passed before moving on to the next.

A little over a block away he finally found the right one. He couldn’t see Robin through the press of men, but he could hear the kid through the roars and grunts of whoever he was fighting. Jason didn’t hesitate to throw himself into the fray, working his way towards his brother.  He lost himself in the steady, practiced actions of find the biggest threat and take them out. His brain a few steps ahead of his guns, a part of his attention on Damian.  
  
All Jason could think of during the fight was the words Bruce had used earlier: take care of Robin. They were what pushed him to his limit during the fight, and what propelled him into Damian, shoving the boy out of danger as a stray bullet caught the side of an unprotected water heater and causing it to explode. 

They crashed to the ground together, Jason covering Damian as best as he could from the heat and debris. His ears were ringing when he finally pulled away. He was sitting up, and reaching forward to check his youngest sibling, when he felt the first twinges of pain past the adrenaline. 

  
The worry on Damian’s face was enough to draw Jason’s attention to his own body. He felt himself go white as he saw the wound. Red and gaping, his thigh was cut open and bleeding, a sliver of shrapnel caught in the upper meat of his thigh. His side was screaming at him from turning to look, and a pressing of two fingers told him he’d probably broken a rib.  
  
“Don’t move. Don’t even think about moving.” There was a tremor of panic to Damian’s voice as he was already digging through his own utility belt, searching for medical supplies.  
  
“Let me call Dick.” Jason said reaching up to his helmet.  
  
Damian shook his head. “No one’s in Gotham.”  
  
The weight of his words took a moment to sink in. Jason paired it with the fact that Bruce had called him, he’d thought last. But if everyone was out of town it made sense to call Jason. He grimaced. He should have said yes. Maybe they wouldn’t be in this situation if he had.  
  
Jason pulled off his helmet for air. Breathing was hard enough with shrapnel in his leg, he didn’t need the constricting dimensions of something on his face to make it harder. Damian found what he was looking for and moved closer to Jason.  
  
“I’m going to do the cut on your leg first. Then we’ll decide if you can move with that in you or not.” That was referencing the once blue, now red soaked metal sticking through Jason’s uniform.  
  
He let Damian wrap his leg, his attention on the boy in front of him instead of the fire in his body. “You ok? Not hurt anywhere?” he asked.  
  
“I’m fine.” Damian said. “Much better than you.” he tied off the gauze on Jason’s leg and frowned at the metal. “That’s not coming out.”  
  
“Not if you want my blood to stay in long enough to make it to the cave.” Jason confirmed, his head getting a little light. He wasn’t sure he’d have enough blood left by the time they made it to the cave anyway. Adrenalin and experience had made him numb to the worst of the pain so far, but it was quickly catching up with him.  
  
Damian looked him over. “You’re not walking on that leg.”  
  
Jason gave him a toothy grin. “I could try.”  
  
His brother’s frown hardened and he stood. Jason had been expecting a lecture, but silence and worry were normal too. He tried to push himself to his feet. His vision swam first, then his stomach, and all the energy drained from his arms and legs.  
  
Arms caught him before he hit the ground again, and Jason felt himself being tugged over a much too small shoulder, one arm being tugged around a neck and gripped by a hand that was oh so small. His blurry eyesight cleared after a moment as Damian’s voice was in his ear.  
  
“I’ll need you to help as much as you can, alright?” If someone could be harsh and gentle at the same time Damian had figured it out.  
  
Jason nodded, not trusting his words just yet, as his stomach was still doing somersaults inside him. They picked their way to the opening of the alleyway to find the street empty. Damian swore.  
  
“Language, Babybat.” Jason coughed. “We can make it, my bikes a block that way.” He pointed in the general direction of where he’d left the vehicle, hoping it was even still there.    
  
Damian nodded and adjusted his grip on Jason. They could make it. He fell into a lull as they walked, Jason’s mind going over the night and what he could have done better. He realized that he should have said yes to Bruce, not because he was happy to be asked, but because his father had asked him for help.  
  
At the very least he’d kept Damian safe. Bruce should have known the kid was going to go out. Should have pushed harder for someone to keep an eye on him. Jason knew why he hadn’t. Bruce didn’t push with him. Not on things like this. He wanted to risk an argument with Jason as much as Jason wanted to risk one with him.  
  
Their ground was shaky. It ratted more than it was steady. Sometimes that worked. Most of the time it sucked. Today Jason had made it suck, and he wished he hadn’t. Now he wasn’t even sure he’d make it to hear Bruce tell him he should have said yes in the first place.  
  
“Talk about something.” Damian’s voice cut Jason’s line of thought, he’d been zoning out letting his thoughts distract him from the throbbing in his leg. He’d been letting Damian practically drag him, and used his good leg to hop behind, hoping to take some of the strain off the kid..

  
Jason glanced at Damian’s face, his brow was furrowed with concentration as he carried him. “Why?” he asked.  
  
“Tt.” Damian said as if it were obvious. “I need you conscious, it’s easier to carry you that way.”  
  
Jason nodded into Damian’s shoulder. “What do you want me to talk about?”  
  
As he talked he tried to adjust the hobble he was attempting into a better walk. It was hard with his thigh and ribcage screaming at him. He hated that Damian was taking on so much of his weight, with Jason tugged halfway over the boy’s back. The kid wasn’t panting yet, but his face was set in a hard line as they trudged forward.  
  
He was probably blaming himself. Part of Jason thought it would be welcome blame, but the other part, the one that was as familiar with Gotham as he was with his own face, knew things like this happened, on good nights and bad.  
  
If there was blame, Jason wanted it on himself. He’d put off coming to find Damian when asked and he’d been the one to knock the kid out of the way. All the decisions had been his own.  
  
“I don't know. Anything.” Damian grunted as he adjusted Jason’s arm again. “The weather. Your guns. How much you hate Father.”  
  
Jason’s jaw would have dropped if it hadn’t been so close to Damian’s shoulder as it was. “I don't hate Bruce.” He said quietly.  
  
“Hn.” Damian said.  
  
“I don't.” His voice was more forceful now, protective. “Sure, we fight. And sometimes he ticks me off. But he's—” Jason broke off trying to find the words. “Well he's my dad. I can't hate him.” It must have been the blood loss and pain that let the words slip out, at least that would be his excuse if Damian asked.  
  
Bruce was his Father even if he hadn’t given birth to him. He’d been more a dad than anyone else in Jason’s life, and he’d taken him in when no one else would. Even now Bruce still offered a loving hand to Jason despite their bickering and tension.  
  
Jason could sight the hurt that came with being murdered, or the anger that still boiled in him when he thought of the Joker still breathing, but he and Bruce had come so far from where they’d been when Jason crawled out of the pit. Deep down he could never hate the man, not for long, not truly.  
  
There was silence between them and Damian nodded. “It is difficult to hate family.”  
  
Damian’s words were as soft as Jason’s had been on his first admission that he didn’t hate Bruce. There was a hint of pain in them, and he knew Damian was reliving his mother’s betrayal. Jason swallowed, what was worse: having a father not avenge your death or having your mother be the cause of it? Though in Jason’s case it was almost both, but he didn’t blame his mother for her betrayal. At least she hadn’t put a bounty on his head.  
  
He thought again about how little Damian was. The small hands with their strong grip on his side and wrist. The lithe frame, carrying his weight. The small furious feet pushing them home. He’d been through so much in such a short time. They all had. It would be so easy to blame Bruce. To lay the fault on him for pulling each of his kids into this world of blood and gunpowder.  
  
Except, they’d all come willingly. Each successive Robin more aware of what it is they were getting themselves into. Jason himself wouldn’t change a thing. Ok, maybe he’d try not dying if he had to do it again, but everything else would stay the same.  
  
“You don’t act like you love him.” Damian said.  
  
“You don’t act like you love Tim either.” Jason retorted.  
  
Damian’s cheeks got a little red and his lips set in a pout.  
  
“It’s alright.” Jason gave a light chuckle that hurt his chest. “I hated you for a while after all.”  
  
The pout faded to something like resignation, as if Damian had accepted that fact long ago. “I can understand that. You did shoot me once.”  
  
Jason had done a lot to lash out at Damian. He hadn’t been just another Robin in the long line of them, he’d been Dick’s partner. Worse, he was Bruce’s son. The news that Bruce had a kid had hit Jason like a freight train. It had felt like a betrayal to everything Bruce did. His claim not to want to bring them into his war, his tendency to stay away from long term relationships. It had made Jason sick. Even after he’d learned that Damian had been a surprise Jason had problems with how Bruce dealt with the situation.  
  
“That wasn’t the time I was talking about. Besides I hated everyone back then.” Jason said, the addition an attempt to brighten the mood.  
  
Damian hummed. “When then?”  
  
“When he was trying to bring you back he took me back to the place where I died, he wanted to see if I remembered anything.”  
  
“I wasn’t aware he did that.” Damian’s voice was low.  
  
“He tried a lot of things to bring you back. I could have hated him for it. I was defiantly pissed. But I was madder at you. It was stupid. You’d died, I shouldn’t have been mad about it. And I shouldn’t have blamed you. But I did. At the time it felt like he cared more about you than me.”  
  
Damian stiffened, his hand tightening on Jason’s side.  
  
“Then I realized.” Jason continued. “He would have done the same for me if he could have.”  
  
Damian was silent, but his grip hadn’t loosened. Jason knew it was hard for the kid. But something in him wanted to get the words out. They were so alike, he and Damian. And Jason’s strength was draining out of him as fast as his words were. Everything hurt and he wasn’t sure he’d get another chance to say the things he’d been sitting on. The things he wanted to tell Bruce.  
  
“Tim's told me about how he was after I died. At first it was cathartic. Then I realized. He wasn't ready for me to die. Or to come back. He didn't know how to handle it. His world was black and white. You live you die. That’s it. In many ways your only back because I died.”  
  
“He learned it was possible.”  
  
Jason nodded. “For us, yes. He'd seen others do it. Super powered people. But us regular guys? Never.”  
  
Jason wasn’t sure when he’d realized it. His hate for Damian faded the moment he decided to help Bruce get the kid back. He couldn’t stay mad at him, it wasn’t Damian’s fault. Neither was it Bruce’s. Maybe it had been then when he’d started to think about it, about the differences in how Bruce took this Robin’s death.  
  
“Do—” Damian paused, “Do you still hate me? I would understand it if you did.” His tone hinted at the hurt that his question lacked.  
  
“Would you drop me if I said yes?” Jason teased.  
  
Damian scowled. “No. Nothing would make me drop you. Father cares about you too much for me to let you go.”  
  
“What about you? If Bruce had no say, would you leave me?”  
  
“Your family, Todd. The last thing I’ll do is leave you behind.” He sounded irritated that Jason would even consider the thought. Jason felt himself warm through the pain.  
  
Their conversation broke off as they reached Jason’s bike. He was happy to see it was still there. Damian was frowning at the state he’d left it in. He prepared himself for a biting remark on caring for his stuff, but Damian just moved to help Jason lean against the side of the building.

He righted the bike and moved to help Jason on. “I’m driving.” he said and Jason didn’t argue his head was pounding, the few seconds resting against the brick had let everything rush back to him, the pain in his leg, the ache in his chest. He was tired from the walk and the last thing he wanted to do was drive a motorcycle.

He drifted in and out of awareness as they drove. Every time his arms would go slack around Damian’s waist the boy would tug on one and Jason jerked back awake. He was in a haze by the time Damian pulled into the cave, the tires screaming to a halt.

The mere idea of the cave and being there, being home, let Jason’s eyes droop. He had no reason to stay conscious now that they were here and he let himself drift off as hands pulled him from the bike.

He woke up warm, the pain in his body a numb ache. He was still in the cave, laid out on a gurney. Next to him Dick sat back in a chair dozing lightly. At the sound of Jason rustling the sheets he woke up and blinked at Jason.

“Welcome back.” Dick said, “How’re you feeling? Alfred called us when Damian dragged you in here.”

“Us?” Jason asked.

Dick nodded. “Timmys here somewhere. Grabbing a coffee upstairs with Cass. Bruce’ll be back soon. You gave us a scare.”

Jason grinned. “It’s all I aspire to.” He tried to sit up, but Dick pushed him back down.

“Alfred was very specific, you are not allowed out of that bed for anything.” He said.

Jason sighed and fell back, it hurt less to lay down anyway. “Where’s Damian?”

Dick glanced back and Jason leaned up enough to peer over his shoulder. Damian was at the computer, hard at work on the computer.

“I couldn’t get him to leave the cave.” Dick shrugged. “And Alfred couldn’t get him to stay in bed.”

Jason frowned. “Stay in bed?”

Dick turned all the way back to him with a matching frown. “You didn’t know? I guess you were pretty out of it—”

Jason tried to sit back up again, worry replacing the groggy feeling of sleep. “What happened, is he ok?”

Again, Dick pushed him back. “He’s fine. Just some scratches along his chest and arm. He’ll be alright.”

The clicking at the computer stopped as Damian became aware of their conversation. A few moments later he came into view beside Jason. Dick glanced at the two of them and stood from his place on the chair.

“I’ll go let the other’s know your awake.” He said before slipping out of the cave and leaving the two of them alone.

Damian took the chair beside him and fiddled with his phone. He’d changed into a pair of jeans and a tee, and Jason could see the edge of a bandage peeking out from under one of the sleeves.

“You lied.” Jason said with a frown.

Damian’s head whipped up from his phone screen, worry and confusion mixed on his face. “What are you talking about?”

“You were hurt.” Jason pulled a hand out from under the blankets covering him to point at the bandage.

Damian glanced down. “It’s fine, a scratch. How are you feeling?”

“Ok for now. Whatever Alfred gave me is still working.” Jason said. “I’m glad your ok.”

Damian scowled at him. “I was not the one to throw myself in front of an exploding tube.” It was meant to be angry, but there was a slight tremor in Damian’s voice.

“I’m sorry I didn’t come when Bruce called me.”

Damian shrugged. “You came eventually.” He turned the phone in his hands for a moment.

“Course. Could you imagine Bruce’s fury if I hadn’t, or worse: Dick’s?” Jason grinned.

Damian smiled at him now. “Both would be forces to recon with.”

They fell into silence and Jason shifted himself a little on the gurney to better look at his brother. “I don’t hate you, you know.”

Damian’s eyes slid away from him and Jason sighed. “I’m also not mad at you. For patrolling when Bruce told you not to. I did the same thing a hundred times as Robin, I knew you were going to be out.”

His brother’s jaw tightened and he sucked in his cheeks. “I mean it, Damian.” Jason said. “It’s not your fault.”

“I didn’t say I blamed myself.”

Jason rolled his eyes. “No you screamed it. Body language says a lot kiddo.”

“Tt.” Damian said and sat back in his chair. “It was a mistake on my part to continue patrolling. Thank you for coming for me.”

“No problem.” Jason grinned. “You know, if you want to make it up to me, you could always talk me up to Bruce when he gets back.”

Damian rolled his eyes. “Perhaps. But I think he will be content with how things turned out.”


End file.
